Technical Field
The present invention relates to an aircraft beacon device for a wind power installation and the present invention relates to a method for operating a wind power installation and to a wind power installation having an aircraft beacon device.
Description of the Related Art
Aircraft beacon devices are known and are increasingly also required on wind power installations in order to improve the visibility of wind power installations for air traffic. Beacon lights are arranged at least at two positions on the nacelle of a wind power installation. In the case of wind power installations, the problem exists of rotor blades being able to conceal the aircraft beacon. As a result of the fact that beacon lights are arranged at at least two positions on the nacelle at a distance from one another, at least one is not concealed by a rotor blade. In addition, beacon lights may also be arranged on the tower, that is to say on the tower wall. This may occur, in particular, in the case of very high wind power installations.
A problem arises in this case for the manufacturers of wind power installations, in particular, in that, for such aircraft beacon devices, very different rules and therefore technical requirements are imposed on the aircraft beacon device depending on the region and, in particular, depending on the state in which the relevant wind power installation is erected. These different requirements include requirements imposed on intensity, also depending on the time of day, and requirements imposed on the emission direction, in particular on the emission angle range based on the vertical direction. In this case, such requirements both with regard to the emission angle range and with regard to the intensity are often combined and are predefined as characteristics with tolerance ranges.
If a wind power installation is now designed, the aircraft beacon device provided must be adapted to the rules and conditions of the planned erection site. The situation may also occur in which a plurality of wind power installations differ only in terms of the aircraft beacon device.
If the wind power installation manufacturer does not produce the aircraft beacon devices himself, the manufacturer passes the corresponding requirements imposed on the respective aircraft beacon device to the manufacturer of such aircraft beacon devices. Accordingly, an individual aircraft beacon device can then be produced. If appropriate, it comes into consideration that there are already corresponding aircraft beacon devices for the relevant country and the corresponding boundary conditions of the erection site or of the wind power installation, for example the height of the wind power installation and its distance from an airport. However, the variety is wide and it is also necessary to take into account that rules and conditions change, which likewise results in new requirements imposed on the aircraft beacon device and accordingly could make it necessary to develop a new aircraft beacon device.
Aircraft beacon devices which use many light-emitting diodes as luminous means are already known and have become conventional nowadays. This makes it possible to simplify the change to such an aircraft beacon device, with the result that the holding of different aircraft beacon devices can also be simplified and at least can also be less costly.
A further problem of known aircraft beacon devices is also that the additional use of beacon lights on the tower and their coordination with the beacon lights on the nacelle makes such aircraft beacon devices more complex and therefore also increases the range of variation. In this case, such a range of variation may affect not only the different physical elements of such an aircraft beacon device but also the control required in each case. In this case, it may not only be problematic to actually take into account the control diversity depending on the requirement but also to ensure that the beacon lights are each controlled using the controller provided for them.
In the priority application for the present application, the German Patent and Trade Mark Office researched the following prior art: DE 20 2009 018 539 U1 and EP 2 320 126 A1.